MPL's Blog

Tag: Timberwolves

The season starts tonight for the Timberwolves. As part of that, this will be a defining year for Ricky Rubio.

His contract is up at the end of the year and he has already rejected a 4 year $48m offer. For the other positions they have:

Center: Pekovic and Deng – both above average centers in the league

PF: Thad Young – an above average PF in the league

SF: Andrew Wiggins – predicted to be the next Tracy McGrady

SG: Kevin Martin – pretty good

Ricky is supposedly the leader of that group. Looking at that lineup, if they don’t do well, it’s probably his fault and his inability to impact games. If they do well, it’s likely because he has a great season. As Rubio goes, so do the Wolves.

They way I figure this goes is one of two directions:

Direction ONE: the Wolves do well, i.e. approach 35 wins and compete for a playoff spot. In this scenario, I think they pony up and pay Rubio more money

Direction TWO: the Wolves are a lottery team. In this scenario, they don’t resign Ricky and draft a point guard in the lottery.

I’m excited for the NBA season to start. On Monday night the Twolves had their first pre-season game and it looks like Andrew Wiggins could be the real deal. A summary of his performance from the blog post:

Andrew Wiggins. There is obviously a player here. He led the team in minutes (32) and points (18). He took some poor 20 footers and wound up shooting 4-11 overall, but got to the line 10 times and made both of his threes. He also blocked 3 shots and grabbed 3 offensive boards. There is obviously stuff to work on, including getting stronger around the rim and ball handling, but there was a lot to like.

There’s also a good YouTube video of his action here:

As we do every year, we place a friendly bet in the office for the season. This year it’s between Niraj and Ian. Here is how our teams are projected to do:

Timberwolves: Projected 26.5 games won

Nuggets: Projected 35.5 games won

Pistons: Projected 35.5 games won

The bet we’re making with each other is whichever teams performs the worst relative to their projected win count, the loser buys the winners a lunch of their choice at Rio Grande. Now, let’s get it started!